New Year gift: Ticket at the click of a mouse

Navneet Anand / TNN / Jan 2, 2006, 00:56 IST

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The move, say senior railway ministry sources, is aimed at bringing about crucial systematic improvements to benefit customers.

New Year gift: Ticket at the click of a mouse

NEW DELHI: There's good news for millions of train passengers this new year. Beginning January 1, passengers will have the option of booking a seat online (www.irctc.co.in) from the cosy comforts of their house or office.
And much like air travel, a print of the booking will serve as a ticket using which, one will be able to board the train.
After a year of successful experiment on 38 Rajdhani and Shatabdi trains, the Indian Railways has decided to extend the facility of e-ticketing to all the 250 superfast trains.
The move, say senior railway ministry sources, is aimed at bringing about crucial systematic improvements to benefit customers.

And the benefits are enormous. Not only does one save the trouble of standing in long queues, the system also prevents passengers from falling prey to touts.
According to railways ministry sources, e-ticketing was started as a pilot project last year and after initial success, the system was extended it to all the Rajdhani and Shatabdi trains.
"Since it has run successfully so far and has become very popular among users, we are extending this facility to all the superfast trains from January 1," said an official.

At present, the railways sell about 10,000 e-tickets per day earning an average of Rs 1.5 crore.
After its implementation in superfast trains, the number of e-tickets sale per day is likely to go up to 20,000 which is 10 per cent of the total sale of reserved tickets from public reservation system counters in the country.
5.5 lakh tickets are sold every day. This will help in cutting down the rush at PRS centres across the country. "We want to go step by step and after the new system runs hassle-free, we shall extend it to all 1,500 express and mail trains," said the official.
But what about those without an Internet connection? "We have authorised 850 rail travel service agents who will book tickets on behalf of passengers," said the official.
We are also talking to the Travel Agents Association of India to widen the network of agents.

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